1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an address setting method for use in a communication system, which is constructed by connecting a plurality of communication stations mutually via data transmission lines in a data exchangeable manner, and capable of allocating/setting own addresses to enable mutual discrimination of their identity. More particularly, the present invention relates to an address setting method capable of setting their own addresses to a plurality of communication stations by simple process procedures respectively and also capable of improving throughput as a whole communication system upon setting the address, and a communication system to which the address setting method is applied.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, there has been commonly known a communication system which is constructed by connecting a plurality of communication stations mutually via data transmission lines in a data exchangeable manner.
In the above communication system in the prior art, upon carrying out data exchange between the communication stations mutually, addresses to enable mutual discrimination of their own identity must be allocated and set previously to the communication stations respectively.
Therefore, in the prior art, as disclosed in Patent Application Publication (KOKAI) Hei 4-326896, for example, there has been publicly known an address setting method for use in a communication system in which at least one master apparatus and a plurality of slave apparatuses are connected to a common communication bus.
In the communication system disclosed in the above Publication, each of the slave apparatuses comprises a storing means for storing its own communication address updatably and a connection requesting means for transmitting its own connection request information to the master apparatus upon starting the communication system, while the master apparatus comprises a communication address setting means for setting the communication address of the slave apparatus in such a way that such set communication address can be discriminated from those in other slave units and for informing the concerned slave apparatus of such set communication address when it receives the connection requesting information.
According to the communication system, the connection requesting means of the slave apparatus transmits its own connection request information to the master apparatus upon starting the communication system, while the communication address setting means of the master apparatus sets the communication address of the slave apparatus in such a way that such set communication address can be discriminated from those in other slave units and then informs the concerned slave apparatus of such set communication address when it receives the connection requesting information. Therefore, even though a plurality of slave apparatuses are connected on the same communication bus, the address to enable mutual discrimination of their identity can be set without fail to each slave apparatus.
However, according to the address setting method in the above communication system in the prior art, the master apparatus, when receiving the connection requesting information from respective slave apparatuses, has allocated/set the communication address to/in the slave apparatus in such a way that such set communication address can be discriminated from those in other slave units and then returned/informed the set communication address to/of the concerned slave apparatus individually. Therefore, the address setting method in the prior art has contained such a problem to be overcome that process procedures for exchanging the data including the connection requesting information, the communication address, etc. between the master apparatus and the plurality of slave apparatuses individually are complicated.
Furthermore, a total sum of time consumed to carry out the data exchange individually, i.e., a time requested for address setting has tended to become longer. As a result, the address setting method in the prior art has also another problem to be overcome that it is difficult to improve throughput as a whole communication system upon setting addresses.